You should have all of the information necessary to make decisions about exercising your rights under the law. Our legal advocates can provide information and support, as well as refer you to additional resources such as attorneys who specialize in representing victims of sexual violence. Below is information about some of the laws related to employment, healthcare, confidentiality and more.

For more information contact Call for Help at (618) 397-0975

Employment Rights

Victims Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA)

VESSA protects the workplace rights of employees who are victims of domestic or sexual violence as well as the rights of employees who have family or household members who are victims of domestic or sexual violence. VESSA is intended to help employees keep their jobs and stay safe. VESSA specifically provides:

Entitlement to unpaid, job-guaranteed leave. VESSA allows eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from work during any 12-month period to address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

VESSA prohibits employers from refusing to hire, discharging, harassing or otherwise discriminating against applicants and employees with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment based on the applicants or employees status as a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking.

VESSA is administered and enforced by the Illinois Department of Labor. A complaint must be filed withing three years after the alleged violation occurred. An employee may recover damages including lost wages and employment benefits, as well as attorney fees and other relief such as reinstatement and promotion.

Healthcare Rights

Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act (SASETA)

SASETA, 410 ILCS 70, is an Illinois law that has been in effect since 1987. It mandates that all hospitals licensed under the Hospital Licensing Act, 210 ILCS 85, that provide general medical and surgical hospital services shall provide either transfer services or hospital emergency and forensic services to sexual assault victims. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is the institution that approves hospital sexual assault treatment plans whereas the hospital will be listed as an approved treatment center. The administrative rules of SASETA require that every hospital shall comply with the federal Emergency medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and that hospitals providing emergency services and forensic services to sexual assault survivors minimally provide, with the consent of the sexual assault survivor and as ordered by a qualified medical profession the following:

Sexual assault is prioritized in the emergency department as an Emergency Severity Index (ESI), which alerts hospital staff to respond to victims second only to life and death patients.

Hospital staff should respond within moments of the patient's arrival and move the patient to a closed environment (ideally with four walls or three walls and a curtain) to ensure privacy and shall refer to such patients by code.

All patients who enter the emergency department within 7 days of the sexual assault shall be offered and Illinois State Police Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit (ISPECK). If the patient consents to the ISPECK, but chooses not to release it immediately, law enforcement must hold the ISPECK for 5 years while the patient decides whether or not to have the evidence tested.

Anyone at any age can consent to treatment and the evidence collection kit related to a sexual assault. Remember that consenting to evidence collection is two parts; consent to the collection of evidence and consent to release the evidence for testing or holding. A minor under 13 years of age requires a parent or legal guardian, investigating law enforcement officer, or DCFS representative to release the kit to law enforcement for testing.

People with disabilities do not need a guardian present to consent for medical treatment, evidence collection, or release of evidence for testing for sexual assault in the ER. *However if a survivor is unable to consent to the release of evidence for testing, an investigating law enforcement officer may release the evidence if the guardian is unavailable or unwilling to do so.

The patient shall receive medically and factual accurate oral and written information concerning pregnancy resulting form sexual assault, emergency contraception, the indication and counter-indication and risks associated with the use of emergency contraception, and a description of how and when sexual assault survivors may be provided emergency contraception upon the written order of a qualified healthcare provider.

Medications are to made available to the patient for treatment at the hospital and after discharge (Section 5(a4 &8) of the Act). This includes, but is not limited to: HIV, emergency contraception, and STI prophylaxis as deemed appropriate by the attending physicians. The patient shall receive oral and written information about all medications dispensed, possible contraindications of such medication or disease resulting from sexual assault. Please reference the Center for Disease Control for treatment guidelines.

The patient shall receive referral by hospital personnel for appropriate counseling that provides emotional support and confidentiality. *Many hospitals partner with agencies like Call for Help to provide the crisis counseling in the ER and follow up counseling resources.

The patient shall receive oral and written information indicating the need for a follow-up exam and laboratory tests to determine the presence or absence of pregnancy, STIs, and HIV.

The patient should never receive a bill for any services provided in the ER as an outpatient. This includes all bills related to a hospital or health care professional furnishing hospital emergency and/or forensic services, an ambulance provider furnishing transportation to a sexual assault survivor, a hospital, health care professional or laboratory providing follow-up healthcare or a pharmacy dispensing prescribed medications to any sexual assault survivor. If the patient has listed health insurance, the hospital will first attempt to receive payment from their insurance agent. Whatever the health insurance company will not pay, or if the patient does not have health insurance listed, the IL Department of Healthcare and Family Services will reimburse the hospital for any procedures, medication and follow-up tests. The prohibition on billing does not include inpatient hospitalization.

A patient is also eligible for up to 90 days of free follow-up care after their emergency room visit if they return to the hospital emergency room or by utilizing the sexual assault emergency treatment program 'voucher'.

Hospitals must issue a sexual assault emergency treatment program 'voucher' to patients treated for sexual assault and/or abuse upon discharge. This voucher is generated by the hospital through the IDPH MEDICAL ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE (MEDI) SYSTEM. A copy of the voucher should be placed in the patients' medical record. The hospital shall provide a copy of the voucher to the sexual assault survivor after discharge

Confidentiality of Statements Made to Rape Crisis Personnel

The relationship between you and the rape crisis center you receive services from is based on trust and privacy, so it is important that you understand your right confidentiality. Illinois' "Confidentiality of Statements Made to Rape Crisis Personnel" statute provides significant protection to communications between a victim and a rape crisis worker. Creating an absolute privilege for rape victims has provided victims with stronger protections and given victims more control over information about their lives. Victims can confide in a rape crisis center counselors and advocates, knowing that they run little risk of having those communications disclosed publicly unless they consent to such disclosure.

Illinois Crime Victims Bill of Rights

Under the Illinois constitution, crime victims have certain rights within the criminal justice process.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.